Tag Archives: Resource Center Dallas

Dallas appraisal district expands its nondiscrimination policy

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Rafael McDonnell

The Dallas Central Appraisal District has added sexual orientation and gender identity to its nondiscrimination policy.

“I wrote them in late July asking that the language be added, and met with [DCAD Human Resources Manager] Kathy Buehner on Aug. 1,” Resource Center Dallas Communications and Advocacy Manager Rafael McDonnell said.

DCAD has 245 employees and appraises property for 61 governments in Dallas County. Its office is on Stemmons Freeway near Inwood Road.

The new employment policy reads:

The Dallas Central Appraisal District is committed to employing the most talented and capable people possible. The District is an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages all qualified individuals to apply without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran’s status or disability. If any applicant or employee feels he or she has not been treated fairly in this regard, the applicant or employee should contact the Manager of Human Resources immediately.

—  David Taffet

Camp to become AHF Texas regional director

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Bret Camp in the Bret Camp Dental Suite at Nelson-Tebedo Clinic

Bret Camp is leaving Resource Center Dallas to become Texas regional director of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

“I will dearly miss Resource Center,” he said. “It’s meant a lot to me over the last 17 years.”

Last year, Camp left RCD to deal with B-cell lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer. After more than six months of treatment, he returned to work with a clean bill of health as the center’s health services director.

During his absence, a new dental suite was outfitted and named for him at Nelson-Tebedo Clinic on Cedar Springs Road.

Last month, AHF opened its first Texas clinic at AIDS Outreach Center in Fort Worth. Camp will work out of the office at Medical City Dallas where a second area clinic is planned. The nonprofit organization is looking to expand into Austin and San Antonio and possibly Houston in the near future.

Camp said what attracted him to AHF was how client-centered the agency is.

“AHF provides cutting-edge medicine and advocacy regardless of ability to pay,” he said.

AHF is expected to open a clinic at Medical City to serve a Far North Dallas area that currently has no AIDS services and is one of the city’s hard hit areas with new cases of HIV.

 

—  David Taffet

Microsoft challenges Lone Star Ride participants to raise at least $1,000

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2011 Lone Star Ride in Fort Worth

Microsoft, which became a sponsor of Lone Star Ride Fighting AIDS this year, challenged riders to each raise $1,000. The first 100 riders to reach that goal will receive a copy of Office Professional 2010.

On Saturday, Aug. 25, the team Hope Riders is sponsoring a evening of comedy and music at the Interfaith Peace Chapel. Dinner and drinks are included. The first riders to raise their $1,000 will be recognized.

Among the entertainers is Jerry Calumn, who has worked as a professional comedian and is director of the Lone Star Ride.

This year’s Sept. 29-30 ride opens and closes at Microsoft’s Las Colinas campus.

Continue reading “Microsoft challenges Lone Star Ride participants to raise at least $1,000” »

—  David Taffet

HRC needs Dallas phone bankers

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Human Rights Campaign is coming to one of it strongest cities of support for some phone banking and is looking for volunteers.

HRC will hold four phone banks in Dallas in September. The calls will be made from Resource Center Dallas on Sept. 10–13 beginning each night at 6 p.m.

Callers will be phoning to marriage equality states.

The organization promises to give volunteers all the tools they need and refreshments will always be close by.

To volunteer, click here.

—  David Taffet

DART committee to discuss DP benefits

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Mark “Major” Jiminez addresses the DART Board of Directors about the importance of offering domestic partner benefits Tuesday, Aug. 14. (John Wright/Dallas Voice)

A Dallas Area Rapid Transit committee is scheduled to discuss offering domestic partner benefits at its September meeting.

DART Executive Director Gary Thomas told Instant Tea on Tuesday that board member Claude Williams has requested a presentation by staff on DP benefits at the administrative committee’s next meeting. Williams, who couldn’t immediately be reached, serves as vice chair of the administrative committee.

Several members of the LGBT community addressed the DART board Tuesday night to explain the importance of offering DP benefits.

Omar Narvaez, who works for Lambda Legal, told the DART board he lost his job a few years ago after working for a company for 14 years. He said he was lucky that his partner’s company offered DP benefits.

When he went to work for Lambda Legal a year later, Narvaez said his partner then lost his job, so Narvaez was able to put his partner on his insurance plan.

“We need to add these benefits because happy employees and employees that feel safe are employees that love working here,” Narvaez said.

Mark “Major” Jiminez spoke about how he admired DART as an agency but doesn’t support the agency’s discriminatory policies. Jiminez and his partner Beau Chandler will marry in September and have been arrested trying to obtain a marriage license in Dallas County.

Resource Center Dallas’ Rafael McDonnell then spoke and referenced DART’s equal employment opportunity policy, which he also distributed to board members. McDonnell said the policy is contradictory because it says the transit agency doesn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation, including in the area of benefits.

McDonnell said the efforts of former DART employee Andrew Moss, who could not attend Tuesday’s meeting, have been heard loud and clear with the issue now being addressed by the administrative committee. Moss’ Change.org petition calling for DART to add DP benefits has garnered 1,159 signatures.

“I think it certainly shows that our petitions, our calls and letters were heard,” McDonnell said, adding that he is optimistic about the DP benefits issue moving forward. “I feel pretty good about it getting through the administrative committee. I still think we have some work to do with educating board members, though.”

Dallas attorney Scott Carlson was appointed DART’s new general counsel by the board on Tuesday. Carlson is a former board member who voted against adding transgender nondiscrimination protections in 2010.

—  Anna Waugh

RCD discusses DP benefits with DART

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Andrew Moss

After Dallas Area Rapid Transit officials refused to meet with a former police officer about offering domestic partner benefits, Resource Center Dallas met with DART officials this week.

RCD’s Rafael McDonnell, CEO Cece Cox and board member Gary Fraundorfer, who is vice president of human resources at AT&T, met with DART Deputy Executive Director Jesse Oliver this week to discuss LGBT issues after RCD sent a letter requesting a meeting.

McDonnell said the meeting went well and Oliver encouraged them to speak to board members and offered his personal support.

“He outlined and stated his support for LGBT issues,” he said.

McDonnell said it will take some “serious educating” of DART board members before they’ll vote to add DP benefits.

He said the discussion also touched on trans health services and other LGBT issues, but those would also require the board’s approval.

Former employee Andrew Moss created a Change.org petition a few weeks ago to get DART to add DP benefits after health issues prevented him from working. His husband still works for DART.

Although DART refused to meet with Moss, he said he helped RCD meet with Oliver because the organization had tried to schedule meetings with no success.

McDonnell said the “petition has certainly put DP benefits on their radar.” He told Moss about how the meeting went, and Moss said he thinks board members won’t need too much education if the problem and inequality was explained to them.

“I really, honestly believe if you have the support of executive management, I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen,” he said.

Overall, he said he’s glad DART agreed to meet with someone about the issue and believes DART will soon offer the benefits.

“I feel very optimistic,” Moss said. “I think it’s going to turn out like it should.”

—  Anna Waugh

Razzle Dazzle Dallas distributes proceeds

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Greg Dollgener Memorial AIDS Fund board, from left, D’wayne Teague, Tony Rox, David Hearn, Greg Wallace and John Cooper Lara

John Cooper Lara, chair of the Razzle Dazzle Dallas board, presented checks to beneficiaries of the June events at Sue Ellen’s on Monday evening.

The Metro Ball, which took place at S4 on June 8 and featured Taylor Dayne, raised $31,500 for the Greg Dollgener Memorial AIDS Fund. GDMAF provides financial assistance for critical needs through local organizations when other sources are exhausted.

Funds from the Saturday night street party were split among nine beneficiaries. Those organizations were Resource Center Dallas, AIDS Arms, AIDS Interfaith Network, Turtle Creek Chorale, Cedar Springs Beautification Fund, Legacy Counseling Center and Founders Cottage, GLBT Leap, Uptown Players and Legal Hospice of Texas. That party raised $25,000.

Razzle Dazzle Dallas board, from left, Jimmy Bartlett, Johnny Humphrey, Chris Bengston, Thom Dance, John Cooper Lara, Kris Martin, Ron Adams and Howard Okon

—  David Taffet

RCD presses DART to add DP benefits

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Andrew Moss

Resource Center Dallas CEO and Executive Director Cece Cox sent Dallas Area Rapid Transit officials a letter Monday urging the agency to offer its 3,500 employees domestic partner benefits.

Cox’s letter, addressed to DART Board Chair John Carter and Diversity Committee Chair Claude Williams, comes in response to a Change.org petition created by a former employee. The letter states that adding DP benefits is about “fairness and equitable treatment for all employees” and lists how other companies and cities have offered DP benefits at a lower-than-expected cost.

It goes on to request that DART review its “nondiscrimination policy, add gender expression as was the intent of the board when it voted on it in June 2010, and eliminate cumbersome, confusing language that obfuscates the intent of a policy to protect all employees fr0m discrimination.”

DART’s board approved adding trans protections to its nondiscrimination policy in 2010 amid controversy, but advocates have called the language less than ideal.

Former DART police officer Andrew Moss, who started the petition, said DART reached out to him to schedule a meeting with Deputy Executive Director Jesse Oliver for early next week. His petition has garnered 920 signatures.

Moss said he plans to explain how DP benefits would add value to the company, as well as change a negative view of DART in the gay community.

“DART hasn’t had a positive image in the LGBT community and hopefully a move like this will improve the image,” he said.

Moss said DART’s quick reaction in setting up a meeting means the agency views the issues as “something that’s pressing.”

While he hopes the meeting ultimately helps change DART’s stance on DP benefits, he’s not sure what to expect.

“A lot of it really just depends on what he (Oliver) expects from the meeting,” Moss said. “If I go in there and his mind’s made up, it’s fruitless.”

Resource Center’s Rafael McDonnell told Instant Tea that the center reached out to Oliver after he was hired this spring to meet with him about diversity issues, but he never received a response. He said the letter is another request for a meeting and offered his support of Moss.

“Resource Center Dallas supports Andrew Moss’ efforts encouraging DART to establish domestic partner benefits for its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees,” McDonnell said. “This was an issue the Center initially brought up in 2010, when we worked with DART to establish transgender nondiscrimination protections for the agency’s employees.”

Read RCD’s letter below.

Continue reading “RCD presses DART to add DP benefits” »

—  Anna Waugh

Local AIDS agencies send staff members to International AIDS conference

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CNN’s Anderson Cooper, center, with, from left, AIDS Arms’ Nadia Molina, Mychael Patterson, Whitney Hynes and Kali Eszlinger

J.P. Cano

Several HIV/AIDS agencies from North Texas sent delegations to the International AIDS Conference that is being held in Washington, D.C. this week.

This marks the first time the conference is being held in the U.S. A ban on travel to this country by people with HIV that began in 1987 under the Reagan administration was lifted in 2010 by the Obama administration.

AIDS Arms has a delegation of 15 HIV prevention, medical care and health navigation professionals and a volunteer at the conference. The conference has more than a week of activities, marches, trainings, research presentations and networking opportunities, with thousands of professionals and HIV-positive individuals from around the world who work in the HIV field.

AIDS Arms’ delegation includes Drs. Gene Voskuhl and John Martin, Physician Assistant Alem Bayyan, HIV/STD Prevention Director Darriane Martin and her team, Joi Anene, Alexander Ortega and Ashley Innes, and its prison re-entry Director Daron Kirven and his team, Lisa Waitmon-Moses, Mychael Patterson, Nadia Molina, Allison Boyd and Edward Jones. Whitney Hynes, AAI’s Substance Abuse Health Navigator, and volunteer, Kali Eszlinger, complete the team.

Don Maison from AIDS Services Dallas is attending the conference as is J.P. Cano from Resource Center Dallas.

Cano, coordinator at RCD’s Nelson-Tebedo Community Clinic, is one of 20 people from across the U.S. selected as a member of the AIDS 2012 Embajadores (Ambassadors) program, part of the “Mobilizing Latino/Hispanic Communities” initiative at the 19th International AIDS conference. The program identifies, mobilizes and supports the next generation of Latino/Hispanic leaders in the HIV/AIDS field.

The Afiya Center in South Dallas was selected to participate in the Global Village, which will be open to all conference participants. Women served by the organization will showcase their Living Positively Positive project, which focuses on improving health outcomes for women living with HIV/AIDS and those at greatest risk of becoming infected.

Executive Director Marsha Jones said, “The Afiya Center is extremely proud and honored that our activity was chosen to be part of theAIDS 2012 program.”

—  David Taffet

Former employee petitions DART to offer domestic partner benefits

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Andrew Moss

A former Dallas Area Rapid Transit employee is petitioning the company to add domestic partner benefits after health issues have forced him to stop working.

Andrew Moss worked as a DART police officer for five years until 2008. He then worked for the city of Fort Worth until his health prevented him from working. He’s now on COBRA but that will expire in December, he said.

Moss legally married his husband in California in 2008, but Texas doesn’t recognize the marriage. He said his husband still works as a police officer for DART and could add Moss to his health insurance plan as early as January if DART offered DP benefits.

“My husband goes to work and risks his life for DART and should get the same benefits that his counterparts of a different sexual orientation get,” Moss said.

Moss has started a Change.org petition called “Urge Dallas Area Rapid Transit DART to Offer Domestic Partner Benefits” to persuade DART President Gary Thomas and Deputy Executive Director Jesse Oliver to add the benefits.

As of Thursday afternoon, 36 people had signed it.

“In my discussion with Dallas Area Rapid Transit, I was advised by their Human Resources Managers that DART ‘Prefers not to get into the choices of their employees,’” Moss mentions in the petition letter. “I wasn’t aware my husband and I and countless others woke up one day and decided to be LGBT. DART appears to be less than willing to even attempt to assist their LGBT population in obtaining benefits or other effective workplace protections.”

Continue reading “Former employee petitions DART to offer domestic partner benefits” »

—  Anna Waugh